Strain
by Gunney
Summary: A ten-year-old case has come back to haunt Jack...or has it? Post-show, Jack's POV.
1. Chapter 1

Jack Malone sat back in his office chair and pressed the heels of his hands against the headache throbbing in his temples. His eyes were watering. He'd been staring at paperwork for six hours. Office requisitions, because the "office manager" was out on maternity leave. The FBI hadn't seen fit to replace her temporarily.

Jack groaned and stared out the glass wall of his office. The rest of the floor was dark, closed down for the night. The gold halogen lights on the polished black floor mimicked the shadowy city beyond the bullpen. Jack had long ago thought the use of the halogen lights only part of the decoration scheme. Now, under the florescent lights in his office, Jack knew it was for a much kinder purpose.

Jack took off the reading glasses and pushed to his feet, stretching. He felt his bad hip creek, felt the phantom pain of a bullet wound on his right side. Come to think of it, that was where the nail had been too. He flexed his right hand as he stepped around the desk and stepped out into the deserted hall. Clean, pristine. Not littered with glass as it had once been after a suspect took Malone's gun and shot up the place.

 _Ya know, it's not just the wounds that are creaking these days,_ Jack thought. It was his whole body. He was getting old. His daughters were in high school, his wife was dating and planning to remarry and he was...well.

Jack found himself staring out one of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the bullpen, his hip leaning against Agent Samantha Spade's desk. He glanced down at the handful of photos of Finn and smirked.

Cute kid. Thankfully Finn looked more like his mother than his father. Jack's eye strayed from the pictures and he noticed that the top drawer of Sam's desk was half a centimeter open.

All the desks had locks, the material in them being of a top secret nature. All the locks were to be secured any time the agent was away from their desk for more than thirty minutes. The drawer was definitely unlocked, and what should have only required a few ounces of pressure, didn't budge the drawer. Sam wasn't the type to allow any part of her life to fall out of order. In fact Jack had begun to feel sorry for the kid Finn would become, growing up solely parented by Ms. Spade.

Whatever was stopping this drawer from closing, Sam hadn't put it there.

A tiny thrill of adrenaline blasted through Jack's aging veins. Pulling his hand away from the silver handle Jack slid Sam's chair a few inches to the side and sank to one knee. He passed his hand gently over the underside of the drawer feeling for wires. Anything that, innocently pulling, pushing, or bumping the drawer might set off.

When he found nothing Jack pulled the chair out and sat on the ergonomic seat. He grabbed the letter opener that he had gifted Sam with and carefully slipped it between the slight crack between desk and drawer. Using the weakest pressure Jack slid the opener along the crack, waiting for a wire to snag on it. Waiting for the tug of a magnet. Waiting for the click of a pressure switch.

Was this a very stupid idea, Jack asked himself as the beads of sweat defied the central air of the building? Yes. Monumentally. Bomb squad guys should be doing this. _But_...Jack paused, took a breath, straightened his spine a little, then skirted the lock in the center of the drawer and continued his slow pace. _But...calling the guys in for a stuck lock?_

Jack shook his head, bared his teeth and chuckled through the last of the brief adrenaline spike, then pulled the slender blade free of the crack. No tugs. No magnets. No clicks.

 _Paranoid much, Jack?_ His hands were shaking slightly when he gripped the bottom of the drawer and yanked. The lock screeched and the drawer popped open, the tiny metal flange now warped beyond use. On top of the pens, stapler, case file folders and gum packet was a photograph. Probably an 8x11, professional black and white glossy. The type every hopeful newbie to New York has tucked into their duffle bag.

It didn't belong there.

Jack stared at it a moment then glanced to the phone. This would be the time to call, to at least alert somebody that something bad might be going down. Jack leaned forward in the chair, heard it creak slightly under his weight, then he heard the click.

It sounded like a snap. Not a twig snapping on a nature walk but a finger snapping at the height of a mob movie. The kind of click that most human beings instinctively cringe at.

Jack winced and waited, frozen. "Gawd, " he groaned, "...this is gonna hurt."

Careful not to move his feet or his hips, Jack reached for the phone, lengthening his shoulder, his arm, elbow, fingers, gaining every possible inch that he could until his pointer and middle finger closed around the coiled cord of the receiver. His cell was on his desk in his office. A stupid place for it to be, but he'd hardly expected to sit down on a chair potentially rigged to explode.

His mind, now keyed up on twice the adrenaline as before, asked briefly if the phone could be rigged too, before he decided it didn't matter and yanked, with only the muscles in his forearm. The cord stretched then yielded, and the receiver toppled into his hand. He couldn't reach the numeral buttons with his fingertips, but maybe with the receiver...

His lower back was just beginning to complain about the strain of the position he'd been forced into with the drawer open most of the way and the chair pushed back to accommodate. There was a drop of sweat heading down the long slope of his nose.

Who was he going to call? Sam didn't have FBI bomb squad on her speed dial. Worse yet she didn't have her own cell on speed dial either. Of the least help was an old movie theme that came to mind and Jack wiped his sweating brow on his sleeve as the voices in his head chimed, "Ghostbusters!"

When he glanced up again his eyes focused on the top most speed dial button. Sam's house phone.

Gritting his teeth Jack hit the outside line button with the tip of the hard plastic receiver, then groaned and stretched until he could hit the thin, rectangular button that said, "house". There was a barely audible hum, then a click, then the rolling throb of the line ringing through.

Jack waited, trying not to shift his thighs or his torso. He glanced at his own dim reflection in the window and wondered what time it was. He waited, stiff, until the answering machine picked up. Per FBI suggested protocol there was an automated voice on the other line asking him to leave a message. Then a beep. For a second Jack was speechless.

What was he going to say. "Sam, I broke your desk and I'm about to get blown up by your chair. Come help?"

He'd really expected her to pick up. Would this be his only chance to leave a message with the world before he was nothing more than organic matter splattered around the room? And further in deeper recesses of his mind, he was still wondering if he wasn't over reacting...

Then he glanced down at the face down glossy that his chest hovered over. It didn't belong there, he reminded himself. It didn't belong and neither did that click. And this was Sam's desk, not his. This was meant for Sam.

"Sam..." Jack said, finally, his mind catching up to the lapse after the "beep". "If you get this, call the bomb squad. Send 'em to our offices."

Jack realized, after the second impatient "beep" sounded, that he didn't have the reach to make a second phone call. He couldn't depress the wedge at the top most point of the phone. Sam had been his one phone call and, despite his best hopes, it'd been a dud. The thought settled into his body adding weight to the strain on his back. It irritated, niggled and pestered at the cautionary calm that years at this job had instilled. He was getting mad.

Mad about the son of a bitch that had seen fit to pick on his agent, mad at the circumstances that had led to his being the unintended victim of this...whatever it was...mad that all this discomfort could be for nothing, and that that wasn't the worst scenario.

The back of the photo was glaring in his periphery. Bracing against the desk, Jack peered under the edge of the photo before he flipped it. The face was vaguely familiar. He remembered that the light gray eyes were actually green. The mass of wavy hair was auburn. She was the subject of the first case that Sam worked on after joining Jack's unit. And she was Sam's first failure.


	2. Chapter 2

The next half hour ticked by slowly. Jack closed his eyes, steeled his muscles against the strain of remaining perfectly still and tried to remember the girl's name. The name etched on the bottom right hand of the photo in flowing script was a stage name. She'd gone by Wilhelmina. She'd had a reason for it too. She'd said it anytime anyone asked. "I'd hate to have a name that nobody can shorten. Think of the options! Willy, Mena, Lena, Helen...anything really."

The more he thought the more his mind whispered that her real name couldn't be shortened. It was awkward, like triangular wheels. It had no cute, readily available nickname. Jack was working his way through the alphabet, exercising his mind so that he could ignore the throb of straining muscles, when a faint voice said, "Her name was Daphne Kennedy Wells."

Suddenly the black and white photo was bursting to life again. In his mind the photo was joined by a second, this one in living color. Daphne, the last time anyone had snapped a photo of her. A beach party. Sitting in the sand with her long, thin arms wrapped around her drawn up legs, chin on her knees, eyes closed in luxurious revery as the wind blew in off the Atlantic.

The person who had taken the picture was her boyfriend. So was the person talking to him with a tinny voice through the mouth piece of Sam's phone. _Name...what was his name, Jack!?_ Always names, and never there when he needed them.

"You're Jack, right? I remember you."

Malone's eyes shot up to the window, looking beyond it into a sea of dark buildings and faintly glowing lights. His mind was quickly putting pieces together. He was being watched, by Daphne's ex-boyfriend or someone that sounded like him. This same boyfriend was probably the person that had messed with Sam's desk. Possible the bomber about to blow him up. Suddenly Jack's tongue was dry and expanding in his mouth. Another drop of sweat raced down his forehead.

"You can sit back." The voice said. "Nothing will happen I promise."

Jack chuckled wryly. "No offense, buddy, but we haven't known each other long enough for that kind of trust in our relationship."

There was a pause, then, "Nah, Jack, you know me. Not as well as Agent Spade, but you know me. Beach bum kid...well, I used to be. Blonde hair, brown eyes, just a little...what did you say in your official report..? Squirrely?"

 _How the hell did this guy-_?

"You really need to talk to your head of maintenance, Agent Malone. Incredibly lax in his old age. Really letting himself go...I could tell you stories, but...I'm not here to get the cleaning staff in trouble."

Jack waited, refusing to ask the baited question. There was a soft, tinny chuckle after a brief silence before Andy... _yes, Andy! That was the kid's name._ Before Andy took in a long breath. "You really screwed the pooch for me Jack." He said in a dramatic, sing-song.

"Yeah?" Jack asked, breathless, wondering now if the kid was in the building. He'd have to be to have hijacked an active line. He'd managed to call into a busy phone line. A new picture of Andy was forming. If he knew enough about electronics to manipulate the building's phones, he probably knew enough about electronics to rig one hell of a bomb.

"You work too hard, Jack. It's gonna kill ya someday, trust me."

"You've been working hard for the past...ten years? Learned some new tricks." Jack ventured, letting his head drop to the desk briefly to relieve the cramp that encompassed his entire lower back.

"Not tricks, Jack. Talents."

There was a click and the sweep of a semi-pneumatically sealed door opening, then the bustle of clothing and the presence of another human being in the bull pen. Jack glanced at the mirroring window again and recognized the face that loomed distantly behind him. Older, showing the added weight and length of time, undoubtedly stronger...time in prison can put a lot of useful bulk on a man if he does it right. He had on overalls and a black headset. Jack stared at the reflection like he was watching a ghost.

Had to be a ghost. Andy Gerbasi, no middle name, had died in prison two years ago. Or so they had been told. So Sam had told him, off-hand in the middle of a quiet dinner together. "Guess you're not dead after all." Jack said, his voice thinner than he would have liked. Was he _that_ out of shape?

"Really...you can lean back, Agent Malone. I don't intend to kill you...in fact. You can help me."

"Help you do what?" Jack demanded, a little more willing to believe that the chair wasn't going to blow if he moved. Andy's goal, apparently, was to hurt _Sam_. He wasn't likely to blow himself up _and_ Jack in lieu of option A.

"Well you've ruined my best plan. Now I need a new one." Andy approached the desk with a wide berth and the caution born of time in the pen. Never turn your back, never get in hand's reach if you can possibly avoid it. He was also armed. A tiny nine millimeter, small enough to fit inside one beefy palm and not be visible.

By the time Andy was within ten feet Jack had settled back and was getting to his feet. "No, Jack, just sit." Andy's voice was calm with a twist of madness underneath.

"I don't think so, Andy." Jack said, rising up and doing his best not to flinch when the gun jerked and rose with him. "You want to talk turkey, let's do it outside."

Andy's eyes, palest brown and glassy, twitched a few times. He'd once been a beach bum, now he looked like a T-rex. Lots of muscle and height, not a lot of brain. He was on something too, Jack thought, trying to catalog the symptoms. What was most disturbing was that the kid...man...wasn't angry. Insane, high and hell bent on revenge yes, but he was calm. Far too calm for the situation. He should have been ranting and raving, but he was quietly calculating and considering the situation.

It threw Jack off just enough that he couldn't see the bullet coming.

He was looking for a detonator, trying to see into the bulging pockets of the maintenance coveralls, trying to decide just how well armed this guy was. How much bulk was muscle and how much might be a secondary bomb strapped to the kid's chest.

He wanted desperately to look under the chair, get a good look at whatever he'd been sitting on for the longest half hour of his life. He also knew that Sam kept a spare gun in the bottom most drawer of her desk, and that he had a key in his pocket that would give him access to that gun.

But Andy made his decision before Jack could resolve any of that and the gun barked. The bullet settled into the meat beside his left shin feeling at first like a bee sting, then burning hot. Jack didn't fall. He stood, stunned, for about two seconds then lunged forward.

The gun came up and stared him in the eye faster than he expected. Jack ground to a halt and caught the edge of Sam's desk with one hand before his leg could give out and dump him on the floor. It would take a few more minutes for the real pain to settle in, but Jack could feel the sweat starting to pour.

Andy observed the feral look he was being given with a detached wariness. "Please sit down, Jack." He said, but this time there was a quaver, a minute vibration at the end of the sentence that alerted the negotiator in the back of Jack's mind to a possible in-road.

Jack sucked in some air and glanced to Vivian's desk. He limped, a step at a time, to her chair, tipped it up on the front wheels long enough to be sure the chair looked like a chair and not like a rocket ship, then eased down into the seat.

"You gonna sit too?" Jack asked, schooling his face as the throbbing started. Like he'd been punched by a 9-millimeter fist with the power of ten men.

Andy waited, lifting his chin so that he could see Jack through his bottom lashes, the way a senior citizen studies a line of text through tri-focals. When he did speak again he nodded rapidly and pulled out a chair from the conference table. "I'll sit. And we'll talk. Peaceful like."

Jack didn't respond. He let the anger show and kept the pain hidden. The profiler in him was gearing up in the background. He allowed himself one glance at the back of Sam's chair.

A cake of C4, covered in black plastic, attached to the base of the seat. A radio receiver, with a red blinking light, that he had activated by leaning forward. Andy probably had the detonator.

That was all he had time for before he refocused on the big man with the gun.

"What is it you want, Andy?" Jack asked, before he finally looked down at the bleeding hole in his leg.


	3. Chapter 3

"Money."

"Money!?" Jack coughed. "All this, and you want money?"

"No?" Andy asked, tipping his head. "Then what do I want?"

Jack smirked. "Spent a lot of time with the prison psychologist, Andy?" The blonde haired man in front of him fell silent, briefly out of mental tricks. The respite gave the FBI agent time to lift his wounded leg onto the desk. Elevation was the best he could do for the wound. A nine millimeter slug wasn't going to do too much bleeding if he could get it off the ground. Viv's desk would suffer. Hopefully she'd forgive him.

The movement hurt, spiking Jack's heart rate and breathing, and making him dizzy. A late night, he told himself, plus a few too many cups of coffee, mild shock, nothing to worry about. Relatively speaking.

Before Andy found the method to respond, Viv's phone rang. Jack stared at it, ironically once again in a position that made it almost impossible to reach the receiver. It continued to ring despite his stare and Jack finally glanced at Andy, the man with the gun, the one ostensibly in charge of the situation. Andy seemed perplexed by its ringing.

"You want me to get that?" Jack asked, pointing a blood stained finger toward the black bakelite.

That broke through. Andy rose with a jerk and shook his head. The gun was pointed in the general area of Jack's spleen and Andy picked up the phone. "Hello?"

Distantly Jack could hear a voice, light enough to be female. It was too soft to make out the words, but Jack bet it was Sam. With her own line busy she would have been redirected to the directory, and could have called any of the other lines. She couldn't have known that ten minutes ago answering any other phone was impossible.

"No, this isn't Jack. I'm on maintenance here." The voice on the phone hesitated then asked a question, and Andy's eyes diverted from his face to Jack's leg and the small puddle of blood collecting beneath it. "Jack's fine. He's just stuck...in the elevator."

Another pause. Sam was thinking, comparing the message she'd received to the new information she was being given. Andy was thinking too. Jack could see it. Thinking of a way to get Sam into the building without a load of cops. After Sam spoke again Andy pulled the phone from his ear and pressed the receiver to his chest then shouted, "Hey Jack! It's Sam. Anything you need to tell her?"

Then the gun rose and pointed at Jack's left eye. "He's real pissed, Agent Spade, but he'll be fine. He might need someone to come and give him a ride though. He's been drinking."

Jack tried to decide what he was going to yell. What the most important information was that he could get out quickly and clearly before Andy shut him up. He tried to look as drained and at ease as possible, to avoid cuing Andy before he had the chance to open his mouth.

Andy was working to convince Sam that Jack was rolling drunk and really needed a DD to save the day. Every time he lied Andy would turn his head and stare at the top of the desk, an interesting quirk that Jack remembered from way back.

Andy's name, and Daphne's. It was the most he could do, he decided, and silently practiced saying the names once before he drew in a low deep breath.

"Andy Gerbasi, Daphne Kennedy Wells. Sam! Andy Gerbasi and Daphne-" He was cut off by a scream. His own scream. In retaliation Andy had slammed a fist down on the wound in his leg once, then three more times with an angry rapidity. Jack pulled away as fast as he could, rolling the chair back and scrambling to his feet. Limping through the warren of desks, he'd made it nearly to the emergency exit before Andy slammed down the phone and started shooting.

The first two shots missed and Jack barreled through the emergency bar, losing balance and falling into the narrow stair well. The third shot before the door closed hit the outside corner of his funny bone. If hitting it on a desk hurt, getting shot there...Jack fell/ran down the stairs unable to see through the pain until he'd reached the first landing. The second flight of stairs was easier and by the time he reached the ground floor his arm had gone numb.

Jack burst into the lobby and followed the wall to the reception desk. There were two things he wanted from there. A first aid kit, and a phone. The first aid kit would have to prove helpful on the run. He jerked the phone off the hook and stared at the increased complication of speed dial numbers, before he growled and hit 911. It wasn't the fastest way of doing things, but it would be effective.

The phone buzzed in his ear as he leaned on the reception desk jerking open drawers and cabinets until he found the light blue duffle with the red cross stitched on it. Leave it to the FBI to have the heaviest damned kit available. There were emergency rations in the thing, and a camp stove.

"911, what's you're emergency?"

"This is FBI Special Agent Jack Malone I need a bomb squad, and SWAT to report to the FBI offices on Broadway. The suspect is an adult male, blonde hair, brown eyes. About thirty two, six feet zero inches, wearing light blue maintenance coveralls. He is armed and has control of explosives." Jack took a breath and waited. There was more information he needed to give but he had to be sure that the male voice on the other end had gotten the first part. The important part.

"What's your address?"

Jack sighed. "Come on, it's the FBI complex on Broadway..." Jack glanced around him, then squinted at the reversed, embossed letters on the glass facade in front of him. "26 Federal Plaza."

"Is anyone injured?"

"Yeah...you got the part about the bomb squad and the SWAT team?"

"Yes, sir. Please stay on the line."

"Wha-" And then he was on hold. If there had been a burst of Kenny G., Jack would have shot the phone. If he'd been armed. And if he didn't need the phone.

He'd been waiting for the emergency door to slam open and Andy's irate bulk to come busting through. Either Andy had decided that Jack wasn't important enough to chase or he'd gone another way.

Then the elevator dinged and Jack grabbed the first aid kit and ran, behind the giant granite wall that backed reception and down the hall toward the giant maze of connected rooms that made up accounting and the Social Security Administration. All the doors would be locked of course, but the bathrooms weren't. Jack hesitated outside the men's restroom before he ducked into the women's.

It was reasonable to assume, Jack thought as he hefted the duffel onto the heavy duty baby changer and ripped the zipper open, that Andy might be smart enough to know that the bathrooms were the only rooms unlocked at night. However, ducking into the women's might provide Jack a little extra time.

The pale red backup lights by the door gave Jack just enough illumination to dig through the pack. He shed his jacket before looking at the blood that soaked his right elbow, a macabre version of the elbow-patched jackets of the 1920s. He was keyed up. His senses hyper alert, which made everything hurt more. Layering gauze pads and wrapping the roller bandage tight enough around the awkward joint was a trial that made him wish he was sitting down. He did his best to remain silent, overly aware that he didn't have a weapon if Andy should suddenly come upon him.

Jack found the three-legged wooden stool under a counter...he didn't know the purpose of the stool or the counter but the giant mirror indicated it was a makeup area? He'd settled the bag on the counter, and his tired ass on the stool, prepared to deal with the still oozing wound on his leg when the men's room door was pushed open. The thin wood banged against the wall opposite where he sat then creaked closed.

Jack thrust his hand into the pack, dug to the bottom, felt cool, etched metal against his fingertips and yanked. A Maglite. A full-sized, wand Maglite. _Here I stand, prepared to defend my country and myself, with this Mag-nificent weapon. God, Jack, you gotta get out more._

Jack grit his teeth and limped to the door, carrying the stool with him. Added height would help. On top of the stool, with most of his weight on his good leg, Jack flattened against the narrow strip of wall between the door and the first stall and waited. A few stall doors in the men's were slammed open. Then, in the absolute silence of the FBI building, Jack heard the unmistakable tinkle of urine in an empty urinal.

He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. What if this was all a dream? Some crazy, messed up dream and he was, even now, face down on his desk, drooling on requisition forms? The throbbing in his elbow and calf suggested otherwise. As did the dime-sized pool of blood collecting on the stool.

As he waited, it also occurred to him that he was going to have to explain this whole thing to the authorities. In detail. He could see the faces of his teammates, Sam and Martin in particular, trying not to laugh as he explained the dire circumstances that led to his hiding in the women's restroom on a makeup stool with a flashlight.

The urinal was flushed and Jack imagined hearing a zipper. A few minutes later the men's room door opened and Jack began to count, deciding how long Andy would wait in the hall before checking the only other unlocked room on the floor. Except that he didn't. After a few seconds Andy trudged down the hall, away from the bathrooms.

Jack felt a surge of relief followed by a wave of dizziness and overwhelming pain. He tried to catch himself, slipped on the small puddle of blood and crashed to the floor, the back of his head cracking on the edge of the stool. His last thought, before he blacked out, was that the explanation for how he came to be unconscious on the women's bathroom floor wasn't getting any better.


	4. Chapter 4

Jack woke trying to explain himself. "S'Maglite. Gonna hit the bastard. Knock 'im out."

"Tryin' to kill me, Jack?"

The FBI agent's head rolled back and struck marble, oddly cushioned marble. A headache was throbbing from the back of his skull to the bridge of his nose. An attempt at moving his arms to cover his eyes failed, due to restraints. Jack pulled and something rattled. _Cuffs, please don't be my own._ Elbow...he couldn't feel it. Leg hurt, something was wrapped tightly around it. _Ducttape? Again?_

Jack groaned, scrunched his face tightly against the pain then opened his eyes a tiny bit. They were on the ground floor, behind the reception desk. The lights were on. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the marble. Practically hog tied. Jack groaned again and let his eyes roll closed. "Sick of this..." He muttered.

"Imagine how bad I feel about that." Andy said sarcastically. He paused a moment then kicked Jack's leg. "Hey, sleepy time is over, old man. Come on, wake up."

Jack leaned forward and drew his legs away, felt an alien weight on his chest and looked down. The package of C4. It was duct-taped around his chest. Lovely.

"Gonna blow _me_ up now, Andy?" Jack shifted til his shoulder was against the marble and he could press the side of his head against the cool, hard surface. God, his head hurt.

"You know that was never the plan."

"But killing Agent Spade was?"

"She killed Daphne, and I went away for it. Tit for tat, Jack. An eye for an eye."

"Oh please, Andy. You admitted to killing her. Twice. Once in our offices and once on the stand. You killed her. You told me you wanted to pay for what you'd done."

"I put Daph in that shed, yeah I did." Andy said finally, his voice softening. "But _she's_ the one who kept distracting me...who seduced me. If if that agent'd left me alone I could've got to Daphne in time and she'd still be alive. She'd have...she'd have understood. Forgiven me."

Jack wanted to cackle in his face, but he knew his head would punish him for it. Instead he rested against the marble and expended a minute's energy wishing every bulb in the ceiling would explode. When it didn't work Jack let his eyes close.

"Hey..."

"What..." Jack ground through his teeth.

"Hey! Hey wake up." A kick this time, light, against his hip. "I need you awake for this next bit."

Jack kept his eyes closed. The lights were too bright, he was getting dizzy and had to concentrate hard not to puke. Besides, if the "next bit" was going to involve detonating the C4, he'd rather be asleep for it.

"They're gonna call, and they're gonna want to talk to you. You know...make sure you're alive."

"They?" Jack grumbled, barely moving his lips.

"Those guys." Andy said, a little too brightly.

When Jack forced his eyes open he finally caught the flashes of red and blue against the far corner of the wall. No sirens, he might have been unconscious for those. The spectacle seemed to temporarily fascinate his captor and Jack suddenly wanted to know where this guy had been for the past two years.

Someone had helped him fake his death in prison, clearly. Someone had also helped him escape. Why had it taken him two years to enact this revenge. And why was his logic so skewed, even defying what Jack knew to be the truth?

And why was he suddenly smelling marshmallows? Was that a sign of a severe head injury? Suddenly smelling weird smells. But it was there, mixed with the stink of his own sweat and blood. Marshmallows.

"What do you want Andy?" Jack asked again, once more aware of the weight of the C4 on his chest. Craning his neck he tried to get a closer look at the radio device. Oddly enough the smell of marshmallow got stronger the closer his nose got to the brick. It wasn't helping the nausea. Jack leaned his head back and tried to breathe but the marshmallow smell was overwhelming now that he'd noticed it. "God...what is that smell?!"

"Fondant."

Jack was panting now, blowing air in and out of his mouth and trying not to breathe through his nose. "What!?"

"That brick, the C4, it's fondant."

"Fondant? Oh God...get it off me."

Andy paused, glanced down at Jack, then said, "I need it."

"If you don't get it off me now I will puke all over you, get...it...off!"

Andy pointed his gun...it was all the power he had in the moment and he shook the piece, rattling the metal. "Hey! I'm in charge. _My_ plan now. It stays."

"Get it off. Get it off, get it off!" Jack shouted, flaring the pain in his head and setting off a roll of nausea that he couldn't contain anymore. He tried to tip onto his side so that he would at least not be puking on his own clothes.

Andy stopped him, shoved an empty waste paper basket under his nose with one hand, and started hacking at the duct-tape with the other. The brick of decorating paste came off at about the same time Jack's stomach emptied. Andy waited, with the patience and detachment of a registered nurse, until Jack had finished and leaned back.

"I'm going to have to put it back on." Andy said, waiting for Jack's groan before he said, "But it can wait."

Jack watched Andy, trying to ignore the taste in his mouth, the tears in his eyes, the pain in his arms and legs. At first he would have sworn that this was the man Sam Spade had put away a decade ago. Plus a few pounds of muscle and a few wrinkles, this was Andy Gerbasi. Except that it wasn't. Andy Gerbasi had been a guitar playing, surf's up dude, beach bum. He hadn't shown any spectacular intelligence, in fact, prior to the trial his lawyer had tried a _non compos mentis_ plea, insisting that Gerbasi's IQ was 75.

Now he was making bombs out of fondant, thinking intelligently enough on the fly and showing some tactical ability. He knew that the hostage negotiator would call, expect the hostage to be alive and that having Jack strapped to a bomb would work in his favor. Every few moments the old Andy would peer through but the new Andy was a completely different person.

Like a twin. But Andy hadn't had a twin, or any siblings at all. He was orphaned according to his records, eventually adopted by foster parents that wanted the kid for the money he would earn them from the state. They didn't care what he did so long as he didn't get them in trouble. The conversation with the foster parents had been brutal and depressing. Jack had observed it from the other side of the two-way mirror, letting Sam go solo.

She'd been ready to tear a new hole in the ozone by the time she left the meeting room. Later, when she was calmer and asking for his advice, Jack had told her that she shouldn't shout questions at anyone who wasn't a suspect.

"And?"

Jack was smirking just a little, enjoying the sparkle in the new agent's eyes. He'd also enjoyed seeing the fire. The fire was what kept you from being jaded. " _And_ there will always be assholes like that in this job."

"Yeah, yeah, forget about 'em and move on, I know." Sam had said, waving a slender hand in the air.

"Oh, no, remember 'em...so you can bust 'em for something later." Jack said over his shoulder as he walked away. He remembered the satisfaction of Sam's miffed laugh. He'd worked damned hard to stay alive so that he could hear it again, on more than one occasion. _Why stop now...?_

If not a twin, or a brother or a sister...then who? If this was Andy, was this hypnotism? Had the low IQ thing been a well played facade thought up by his lawyer?

If he wasn't tied up and slowly bleeding to death, Jack would be asking Viv to look up the kid's old lawyer and question him about the case. Elena would be pulling in the foster parents again, and they'd be going deeper on his birth family. He'd have Martin and Danny visiting the prison, talking to cell mates, psychologists. Anyone that had had contact with Andy.

And Sam...he and Sam would have a quiet conversation about their shared memories of the old case. Perhaps with some wine, firelight. That would be great. Better than a nightmare spent with Andy Part II, a concussion and a multi-purpose cake ingredient.

The phone rang. Again a phone was ringing that he couldn't physically get to to answer. Worse still Andy decided to let it ring for a bit, staring at whatever there was to see beyond the windows of the lobby.

"Answer the phone." Jack said, softly, protecting his head. Trying to stay calm.

Andy didn't hear him. Jack said it louder. "Answer the phone, Andy."

Andy spared him a glance, then looked back at the windows. He was getting excited, his foot tapping to some inaudible beat.

"Answer it."

"Not yet."

"Answer the phone."

"You gotta wait 'em out-"

"Answer the goddamn phone or I will shove it down your throat, pull it out your ass and _make_ you answer it!"

Andy stopped tapping and studied Jack, his eyes wider. Lighter in color too. Or was that the head injury? Then he finally answered the phone...and became someone completely different...by pulling off his nose.


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn't just the nose. The kid's entire manner changed in an instant. Suddenly instead of hailing from Jersey, he was from Michigan. Instead of menacing, or mincing, he was confident, business like, polite. Suddenly...suddenly Jack recognized him. There was still some makeup putty caked to the sides of his nose, his real nose, and Jack realized that the color change in his eyes was the result of a missing contact. His left eye was now hazel, compared to the brown of the right.

A montage of memories slammed through his brain like a derailed subway car through a crowded tunnel. Not ten years ago...no...fifteen. All the way back to..."9/11." Jack whispered softly.

Shortly after 9/11, while the whole of NY, Washington and PA were picking up the pieces there was an unprecedented rush of volunteers. All the branches of government and the military dealt with an influx of angry Americans desperate to strike back. Just as quickly as they arrived, the volunteers were turned away.

Police academies, government training centers and recruiters everywhere were begging the volunteers to do what they could with the Red Cross and donate money to the victims' fund, volunteer at the hospitals, soup kitchens, churches, charities. Some did.

Others thought they had finally found an excuse to turn a future date with anger management class into a future career fighting the bad guys. They didn't like being turned away and they went home to drink beer and whine about how the government wasn't doing anything to "go after those guys, and make sure they never try it again."

Some...like this guy, never gave up trying. Jack hadn't been there when he tried to sign up for the academy but he had been there the day the guy was led from the building in cuffs. The commotion had been short lived, something that the FBI agent chuckled about with the director over lunch.

Then a familiar face had shown up on the cleaning staff. Jack barely made the connection at the time, then ignored it. Everyone, including the guy that refilled the toilet paper in the bathrooms, went through an extensive background check before they were given a parking space, let alone access to the rooms in the building.

This guy had been given a universal key.

"She wants to talk to you." The words were delivered reluctantly, as if the guy hadn't just got done telling Jack that he had to stay awake because "they" would want to speak to him. The phone was held out toward him and Jack rattled the cuffs with his good hand.

"You wanna uncuff me, or I am I supposed to shout?" His voice had taken on a new level of rough since throwing up in the trash can and he could feel the strain of too little sleep, blood loss, trauma...anger. Jack was quickly reaching the point where he would stop making wise decisions and start doing what felt was the most satisfying.

It must have shown in his face. The guy formerly known as Andy blinked once, then bent to unlock the cuff circling Jack's left wrist. As soon as the awkward angle eased the dull throb in Jack's elbow flared into shooting pain and he closed his eyes, groaning softly until his right arm was free, his wrists laying against his thigh. Then he reached up, jerked the phone out of the guy's hand and growled, "Sam?" into the receiver.

Her response was one word, but it spoke hundreds. She said, "Jack?" with a combination of relief, fear and confusion.

"Yeah." He responded, a little softer, kinder. "It's not Andy."

Not Andy jerked his head up, looking like a deer in headlights at the simple proclamation.

"We know...we know who he is. John Macy. He was an actor before 9/11-" The line went dead. John Macy stood by the cradle with the jack for the receiver in his hands, looking guilty. Jack expended the last of his energy in a death stare before he tossed the plastic piece under the desk.

He closed his eyes and counted to twenty slowly. Just twenty seconds to build up a reserve, to rest until he was going to get to his feet and leave.

At fifteen seconds he started to move his legs, working some blood flow into them. The duct-tape bandage around his calf was way too tight and his left foot was asleep.

At twenty seconds he rolled to his left, got his right foot under him and pushed up, clinging to the wall as his head swam. His hands finally free, Jack reached back and felt at the bandage covering his skull. No blood had soaked through. At least not recently.

"Hey...what are you doing?"

"Leaving." Jack said, taking an experimental step away from the marble.

"Y-you can't. I got a gun. I could shoot you."

So far, so good. Jack took another two steps and reached out for the support of the reception desk, eyes still mostly closed against the spin of the room. "You already shot me. Twice." Jack grunted, then limped forward, noticing the stiffness in his knees, his neck. _Too old for this crap. Way too old._

"Hey!"

Jack had ventured ten feet beyond the desk, fifty feet from the carpet. Eighty feet from the door. He could see the uni's, the SWAT van, Martin and Danny beyond the door of one squad car, and Sam's blonde head behind the door of another. They were watching him, and watching John.

Jack didn't turn, but gestured at the wall of glass, the lone barrier between himself and freedom. "You see these guys, John? They aren't gonna let you leave. They sure as hell aren't gonna let a little thing like my life keep them from taking you out. You're dead either way. You wanna live...put the gun down." Then he resumed his journey, focusing on balance. _Slow and steady wins the race. Slow and steady means I don't fall on my ass._

Jack could see Danny twitching. He was a ball of emotion, Danny, and a giver. It was too easy for Danny to give his life up for the sake of someone he deemed worthy. Too easy to hurt Danny. Jack had felt the paternal need to protect him from the moment he'd taken the agent on. Martin...Martin was a hothead. Up until he nearly died. That had mellowed him out, as had Narcotics Anon. and finally admitting that he was human and fallible. Now he thought before he acted..most of the time.

And Sam-

"I said STOP!"

Jack had one hand on the brass door handle when John's shouts finally sank in. He sounded desperate, but Jack was too tired now to wonder why.

"You wanna stop me?" Jack shouted without turning. "You kill me. Otherwise, I'm leaving."

Jack pushed the door open, somehow absolutely certain that John wouldn't shoot. He turned in the door long enough to toss back, "And by the way, you're under arrest..." Before the door closed behind him. He knew he'd be on his own until he was behind something solid. He aimed for the nearest wall, and the concrete bench in front of it, and sank slowly down.

The air outside was blessedly cool, the city alive with the subtle night sounds of commerce and commute. And shouts, the shouts of the people that had been roused out of their beds to come help an FBI agent in need.

He heard the tennis shoes of an EMT rushing across the pavement. He could hear Sam using the bullhorn now that the phone was out. Danny and Martin would stay with her until Macy was in custody. He wasn't sure where Elena and Vivian were. Maybe Sam had let them sleep. He approved, if she had. No need to wake everyone for something so simple as this...just a crazy actor turned custodian posing as a dead murderer and pretending to blow up the FBI building with fondant.

If this was a dream, he told himself, he needed serious psychiatric care.


	6. Chapter 6

The EMT was bugging him, insisting on knowing details about where he was injured, how, how long ago. Jack didn't care. He just wanted some sleep. The ducttape had been cut from his leg and the roller bandage around his elbow reinforced before he passed out, sitting up on the concrete bench, head falling back until it rested against the building.

Sam told him later that the EMT thought he had gone into arrest up until Jack started to snore. Thankfully the medic hadn't had enough time to hunt for a defibrillator. It was Martin's face that he awoke to, bouncing around in the back of the ambulance. Without his asking Martin told him that Sam had stayed at the scene to wrap up. She hadn't let the ambulance leave until she'd checked Jack out for herself though. Martin was given orders to stick by Jack until she got there.

Then there was darkness again, and the best, dreamless sleep Jack had had in a month.

When he woke in the hospital, he was alone. Morning had come and passed, and judging by the carts of food he saw wheeling back and forth outside the door of his room, it was either lunch or dinner. His father would have corrected him, told him it was 'supper'. Maybe it was the pain, maybe it was the foggy remainder of the pain killers, maybe the strain...the image of his father burst into Jack's head and shattered any composure he'd hoped to have. He was suddenly grateful that he was alone as the tears came. Not just tears. Sobs. He hadn't cried like that in years.

He'd fallen back asleep and been awakened by the nurses twice before any of his team came to visit. Again, somehow, he was okay with that. In the end, he was told, that the nurses and doctors insisted what Jack needed most was rest. If they wanted him to heal, they were told to stay away.

When they did visit it was as a group. They came the day he was released from the hospital and tried to take him home. Jack declared they were taking him to the office. He had a fresh change of clothes courtesy of Sam and a prescription for painkillers that he wasn't sure he was going to fill. He'd been told to use crutches but he refused. He walked into the FBI building through the same door out which he had exited four days before.

It was a Sunday. The building was mostly unoccupied. Jack, Vivian, Martin, Danny, Elena and Sam rode up to their offices on the fourth floor, silently waiting for Jack to tell them why they were there.

Jack led them slowly to his office, walked in and sat down. The others, dressed casually in jeans, t-shirts and tennis shoes found seats of their own, some on table tops, some on chairs. Finally Jack took a breath and said, "Alright, walk me through it."

The others exchanged glances, before Sam cleared her throat. "I was asleep four nights ago. I got a call around midnight that I didn't hear. My voicemail picked it up. It did wake up Finn, however. He came into my room and told me I had a call. There've been enough late night calls for him to know by now that they're important. I got Jack's message, then called Martin and Danny."

Elena nodded with Vivian. They'd both been dealing with family issues for the past few nights. Sam had known that and made the decision to let them sleep as long as they could.

"Sam told me she was calling in SWAT and would try to get a uni to run by the building." Martin chimed in, his arms crossed over his chest. "She asked me to get to the Federal Plaza ASAP and coordinate, set up a call center."

"I went out for coffee." Danny said. Jack's eyebrow went up, and Danny explained. "I'd been drinking."

Jack nodded, silently opening his mouth in an 'ah'.

Sam cleared her throat, "Anyway, I tried calling my extension, was redirected, and called Viv's line. I...heard what you shouted. And then I heard what he did." She fell silent, her face matching the expression of the others. Remembering the fear and concern, the hated endlessness of not knowing.

"She called me. Told me to look up this old case of hers once I had access to the mainframe. We called up the warden, woke the guy's lawyer, tried to get hold of his foster parents. But...everybody said the same thing." Martin said, shaking his head. "Andy's dead."

"Then 911 dispatch called us," Danny chimed in. "Right about when I got to the van. They played us your call and as soon as Martin heard it was a guy in coveralls he started thinking..."

"Coveralls, and somehow he's in the building well after closing. Maybe he's working for maintenance or killed someone who was and took his place." Martin finished.

"Martin had access to the security camera footage by then, and he started comparing personnel files to approximate height, age, hair color." Sam said.

"That's how they found John Macy." Elena finished, pointing a manicured finger at the thick file sitting in the center of Jack's desk.

"He uh..." Danny paused, his sheepish smirk playing at the corner of his mouth before he said, "He had a blog."

"Vlog." Martin and Viv corrected, in unison.

"Yeah, that."

"The guy had been recording character pieces for a decade. Some of them were the classics, Shakespeare, _Street Car Named Desire_ , _The Odd Couple_." Martin glanced at Elena, who gave a wane smile.

"Some of them were us," she said. "There was one for me, you, Martin. And three for Sam. Others in the building, but you could tell that he had spent the most time on ours."

"The scripts came directly from our case files." Vivian said.

"That's how he knew the details of the Wells case. He had photos of Daphne and Andy, all the details, even the things we didn't give the papers." Sam added. "Watched all the interview footage."

"There were prison records too. He'd visited Andy a few times." Martin added.

"Was he responsible in any way for Andy's death?" Jack asked.

"No...not likely." Elena said, looking to Sam.

"He was a chameleon." Jack said.

"Or an actor who thought he had found a greater purpose after 9/11, then wouldn't give up the fantasy of it." Sam said, shrugging.

"Did he tell you his original plan?"

Martin sighed looking to the floor and Danny spoke, "He tried a suicide by cop. He's in a coma, at St. Vincent's."

"We had a psychologist look at the case," Vivian said, "He thinks that the strain of so much death, and an inability to effectively defend himself or those he cared about lead to this chameleon like psychotic break."

"How does that translate into attaching a brick of fondant to a chair?" Jack asked.

"His vlog showed that Sam was a favorite. From her files, he knew that the Wells case was her first, and that it ended negatively." Martin began.

"Maybe he thought he could reenact it, pay for the sins of someone who had hurt me by...accepting the punishment Andy didn't pay." Sam finished, shrugging.

"Jail time?" Jack asked.

"Andy was given life in prison."

Jack fell silent, nodding, running the whole thing through his head. His eyes unfocused and he stared at a corner of his office, trying to find the loose end. If there even was one. "S'good work." He said finally. "Keep it up."

His team exchanged concerned glances before Vivian said, "Jack, it's Sunday."

Jack blinked glazed eyes and seemed to come back. "Right." He said, distracted for a second more, before he met their eyes. "Anybody hungry?"


End file.
